Remember When: Hideous hotel offered bat, dust, falling wallpaper

In 1944, my husband, a naval officer stationed in Fort Lauderdale, was transferred to the seaplane base on Whidbey Island, Wash. I, a new bride, was to follow him a few weeks later, where we were to live in one if the "Victory Homes" on the base.

Upon arrival, we had to stay temporarily in a hotel in the nearby town of Anacortes until our house was vacated and ready for us. The only hotel in town was a dark and dusty old place of great age with the unlikely name, The New Wilson. If that was The New Wilson, we would have hated to see the old one, but we settled in for a few days as best we could.

The lobby had hideous dusty brown mohair furniture and windows cloudy with dirt. There was no elevator, so we climbed to our upstairs room.

One evening, we managed to find a movie in this dead town and saw "The Lost Weekend," where Ray Miland suffered the DTs and saw mice popping out of the walls. We strolled home after the show, climbed the stairs and walked down the dim hallway to our room. While my husband was putting the key into the lock, I noticed the moldy-looking brown drapes hanging at the window beside me, and saw to my horror, a bat clinging to the drape! Too coincidental after just seeing "The Lost Weekend."

Two nights later, asleep at 2 a.m., I was suddenly awakened by a scritch-scritching sound behind my head. I thought it had to be a rat clawing its way through the wall. I woke my husband and we both went to the phone to call the manager. At that very moment, there was a ripping noise, and to our shock, a huge sheet of wallpaper tore off the wall and draped over our bed, where only seconds before we had been lying.

I could only be thankful that it was not a rat. We couldn't wait to leave that house of horror.